Author	Thread: What is the purpose of marriage?
TravisjustTravis View Profile History	What is the purpose of marriage? Posted : 12 Jul, 2014 04:30 PM As single people we do not understand what marriage is. I am currently single and have never been married so I am not claiming to fully understand what marriage is, however I have talked to several married folks and I assure you that many of them are just as clueless about the function of marriage as us single folks. In the book Sacred Marriage (by Gary Thomas) the question is put forth: "what if GOD intended for marriage to make us holy and as a side effect people become happy." Many of us expect that our husband or wife will some how be able to crawl inside our heads and transform every day into a bright sunny experience. I think I would be a little disappointed if my future wife expected me to see the positive in every situation...and then she expected me to present that information to her with a smile on my face or else she will enter into a downward spiral of depression. (Speaking of depression did you know that it is misguided anger? Yep, when a person gets depressed then they are just mad except they do not know who or what to be mad at. Sometimes they do not know what has made them mad. So they are less than kind to everyone...including themselves.) And its difficult for someone to really feel loved unless they have first learned to love themselves. (some people criticize everything that they say or do, they need to learn to lighten up when dealing with themselves!) Post Reply
Hisjoymypeace View Profile History	What is the purpose of marriage? Posted : 12 Jul, 2014 08:29 PM My brother, the only thing I'm left to ask you is what does marriage mean to you, as far as what you've discerned thru and by the teachings of The Lord? And then what ultimately are your expectations here? Based of course on your sentiments, I'm just curious.......... Post Reply
View Profile History	What is the purpose of marriage? Posted : 13 Jul, 2014 03:44 AM The marriage of two parts is the melding of them into a new whole, the old almost ceases to exist and the new is greater than the sum of it's parts. It's very true that you have no idea of how incomplete you are after you have found another half, which is why splitting up can be so painful... you are actually figuratively tearing yourself apart and always keep a part of the other half on you like paper residue stuck to tape after you tear it off and the same goes for the other person. Some people can not marry (for various reasons) so God instead gives them the opportunity to become "whole" in other ways, He has contingencies for everything. Post Reply
TravisjustTravis View Profile History	What is the purpose of marriage? Posted : 13 Jul, 2014 02:12 PM Nearly half of marriages end in divorce. That tells me at least two things 1) the way that we currently view marriage is broke and needs fixing. 2) It hard to not improve on 50%. (I can walk down the street and marry the first person that I bump into and there is about a 50/50 chance that we will both stay married. However, I think marriage is a side issue. (like if you step on a nail. The wound festers and the infection moves to your leg...In this example your leg is not really the problem. The problem is the nail in your foot.) I tend to think that our marriages are infected, but a sore marriage is a side issue. I think that the real problem behind our infected marriages is selfishness. There is something that I call the 3'Ms. These are 3 questions that everyone must answer. The 3'Ms are: 1)Who is your Master, 2) What is your mission, and 3) who is your mate. You answer #1 first. My answer is JESUS, now the answer to question 2 needs to point to my #1. (my #2 is not to fish, because how does fishing help glorify JESUS) So my answer to question 1 is JESUS, and because JESUS is my MASTER, my mission is not whatever I like to do. My mission is going to be whatever I can do to bring the most praise, honor, and glory to my MASTER. The answer to question 3 is going to be a lady that can help me fulfill my mission. So my future wife is going to be someone who's MASTER is JESUS and she needs to help me fulfill my mission! I once knew a guy that got a big cross with the name JESUS tattooed on his chest. He said that one of the reasons why he did that was so that he would always be reminded of CHRIST. I am not saying to go and get a tattoo, but the point is this as Christians we are not supposed to leave this world in the same shape. That's how I understand that GOD wanted it. When I graduated high school it was like I fell off a cliff. All of a sudden all these options were presented before me. Then I had some structure while I was in college, but then after that it was like I was at a train station with 100's of different trains going to different places. Some trains I knew that I did not want to get on...but I had to do a decent amount of figuring. I kind of think that it would have been nice for some one to have come up and told me that I probably don't want to get on the "red or green" trains. I guess this note has more to do with people's children and there marriage. I spent a decent amount of time "barking up the wrong tree" I have no plans on telling my child who to marry, I don't even like the idea of me pressuring my future child saying things like "it would be nice if you marry so and so." But at the same time I think that it is unfair for me to just tell my child "go pick a spouse." What I think is a good idea is for me to know the families of a few different potential candidates. One of my mentors gave me a good piece of marriage advice, he said find a good woman and marry her daughter. Why...because people usually imitate what they are around the most. What I am talking about is becoming a type of "wingman" for someone that wants to get married (but be careful who you ask for advice.) Like I said I think marriage is like a canary in the coal mine. I think for people to start having stronger marriages, we need to stop thinking about only ourselves (see Philippians 2) Post Reply